In an interview together with her stepmom Gabrielle Union, Zaya Wade opened up in regards to the negative comments she received from people after coming out as trans. The 14-year-old said there was commentary around how she should present herself and she or he selected to reject that advice. 

“As a trans person, once I got here out, there was a variety of hateful comments about how I should grow my hair out long or fit right into a certain version of femininity, despite the fact that that’s not true in any respect,” she says. “That type of advice is just attempting to break you, but don’t let it.”

In a story earlier this month, we reported that Zaya and Union were participating in a Dove Self-Esteem Project geared toward encouraging teens to set their very own beauty standards and block out toxic beauty advice often shared on social media. 

Union chimed in during their most up-to-date conversation for the Project to share her views on beauty and what she and Dwyane Wade attempt to instill in Zaya at home. In essence, they need her to know inner beauty is what matters essentially the most. 

“You may be a ‘stunner’ or ‘classically beautiful person’ but in case your soul is rotten, you will not be very beautiful in any respect,” she said. “We try to emphasize character, compassion, love, acceptance and joy. That hopefully radiates from the within out. Relating to how she moves through the world, we try to emphasize there is no such thing as a one solution to be a lady or to be feminine.”

The actress and mom continued by saying that there’s no “one-size-fits all” approach to beauty, so teens shouldn’t be held to unrealistic beauty standards.

 “There are a billion ways to exist because there are billions of individuals and all and sundry has the power to choose for themselves how they need to exist on the planet and the way they need to move through the world,” she added. “We seek advice from her about resisting anti-Blackness and never centering Eurocentric beauty ideals.”

The campaign encourages other parents to have similar conversations with their kids and remind them to unfollow social media accounts that don’t make them be ok with themselves. Social media might be an awesome place for teens, but when parents initiate vulnerable conversations like this, it might probably make it a safer space for them mentally. 

Zaya, urges other girls and youths like her to affix her within the campaign and Dove’s #DetoxYourFeed movement.

“We don’t have to follow anyone into feeling unworthy or not beautiful,” she said. “We’ve got the ability over our own feeds to remove the content that doesn’t make us feel good and as a substitute flood our feeds with the positivity that we each need to see and put out into the world.”